Last night I had the joy of rewatching The Two Towers, which I almost like more as a movie than as a book, even though there are a few Sam and Frodo scenes, especially toward the end, that just seem to go too slowly. Sure, it’s “character development,” but it’s boring.
I watched the “Extended Edition,” which I’ve owned for a while, but I realized, while watching it, that I’d never watched the extended version before last night — too many scenes were new to me. I’d seen the extended Fellowship before and I think I’ve watched the extended Return of the King … but I can’t yet say.
And I can’t yet say because when I went looking for my CD copy of the extended version, I couldn’t find it … nor my theatrical releases of the three movies. Then I realized, after much searching, that I’d left them all back in Idaho along with most of my other movies on CD. I’ve been meaning to get the extended Return of the King, so perhaps this will just provide motivation.
Since I managed to acquire (finally) episode 11 of SG-1, season 10, and I had episode, so I watched both of them this afternoon. I’m looking forward to finishing the Ori plotline, although I’m sad to see the end of Stargate SG-1 as a series. I like Atlantis, but in terms of the characters and mythology it can’t quite beat SG-1, not yet. Atlantis has too much of a “Star Trek” feel to it. There’s also the new Doctor Who to get. Since I didn’t have any Tolkien/Jackson for this evening I decided, after catching a couple Ghost in the Shell: SAG – 2nd Gig episodes, to watch the first Harry Potter movie again; as it was, over the winter I started rereading the first book, but stopped about halfway through, so I read a bit during the first part of the movie, sort of allowing the plot of one to catch up with the plot of the other.
Along the way I decided that a loaf of Honey-Mustard Oatmeal bread was in order:
– 3-3 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
– 1/2 cup of oats
– 2 Tbsp. dijon (or similar) mustard
– 2 Tbsp. softened butter
– 1 tsp. salt
– 1/4 cup honey
– 1 package (2 1/2 tsp.) yeast
– 1 cup of warm water
– 1 egg
Mix 1 1/2 cups of flour, the oats, mustard, honey, salt, and butter in a bowl until well-mixed. Add the water and beat for a minute. Add the egg and beat for a minute. Add the remaining flour. Turn out on a dry surface and knead about 10 minutes until the surface of the dough is satiny.
Form the dough into a ball and put it into a greased bowl. Cover and let rise in a warm location one hour or until doubled. Punch down the dough and form into a ball. Grease a pie tin and put the ball of dough in it. Mix together one egg white and a tablespoon of water, then brush the loaf and sprinkle with oats. Cover and let rise 45-60 minutes or until double.
Heat oven to 375F; bake for 35 minutes or until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.
I use dough-hooks with my mixer. I can get most of the flour into the dough this way, though I added a little extra water (I had rather dry air in my apartment) and was thus able to add quite a bit more flour when kneading. After the first hour of rising it didn’t seem much increased, but after the second, in the pie tin, it had enlarged a great deal, to the point that it was almost overflowing the edges of the pan.
After I baked the bread I turned it out onto a wire rack and let it cool about an hour before slicing into it. You want to let it cool thoroughly so that the inner and outer temperatures of the loaf stabilize.
This is a slightly sweet loaf, and I always feel that I could add a little more mustard. The texture and flavor is amazing, but it’s not quite dense enough, I find, to be a sandwich bread.
I got through more of Pearl Jam this afternoon, including all of Ten, so now I only have two to three hours to go … Vs. and Vitalogy, for example.
Today’s stupid person award goes to substitute teacher Ruth Ann Stoneburner:
Teacher accused of quieting students with clothespins
AMANDA, Ohio (AP) — A substitute teacher’s tool for silencing chatty kindergartners — clothespins — doesn’t wash with school officials.
Four boys said spring-type clothespins were placed over their upper or lower lips for talking too much in class, Amanda-Clearcreek Primary School principal Mike Johnsen wrote in a letter to parents this week.
Ruth Ann Stoneburner, a retired school nurse who had worked as a substitute for several years, confirmed to Johnsen that she had used the clothespin discipline March 26, he said.
Stoneburner will not work again in the Amanda-Clearcreek district and was being reported to the state education department, Superintendent J.B. Dick said Wednesday.
Officials found out about the discipline after a parent complained. The students weren’t hurt, but the punishment isn’t condoned by the district, Dick said.
Stoneburner could not be reached for comment.
Retired this, substitute that … stilly, what century must she be living in if she considers this an appropriate disciplinary measure for kindergartners?
Unlike with the issue of capital punishment, which I’m against, I am torn when it comes to corporal punishment. The rational, supposedly civilized part of me things that corporal punishment is unnecessary, a shortcut or easy way out for people who lack the skill or intelligence to solve problems properly. That’s to say, people resort to violence not because of the people they’re “punishing” but because of their own failure to deal with matters, which is to say, I want to believe that there is always an alternative to violence.
That’s what I feel about war and international violence. I see no need for it. If I read myths or read fiction or watch movies I can encounter evil so vile, so irrational, that only an irrational response — violence — can be the rational approach. So it is in The Lord of the Rings … nothing but violence and sacrifice can stop Sauron. But in the real world there is no such evil. WWII was necessary — that is, on the part of the Allies — because Hitler had not been stopped earlier by peaceful means. War was necessary, but a necessary response to failure. Clausewitz may have said, “War is a continuation of politics by other means,” but that is the rationalization of war and violence, its instrumentalization, its tempering, but that does not mean that it is moral or necessary.
This is just an aside … a large one … from my thoughts on corporal punishment. I tend to think that the spanking or slapping of a child on the part of a parent is a failure of parenting — a good parent would have stopped matters before they had gone so far as to necessitate violence.
And then, however, I think, this is assuming the rationality of children, which is a great leap of faith, is it not? Could it be that physical force and behavioristic rather than intellectual discipline is at times all that children can understand? I am not a parent, not yet at least, but I figure this is something with which I’ll probably struggle if I do become one.
